Respect for Christianity

onlyrocknroll

I don't post this to antagonize, or even to spark debate, but just to hear some Christian perspectives on the matter (in the interest of disclosure I am not a Christian)

I saw this article today and it got me thinking. (For those on phones a church in New Zealand has erected a billboard with an image of Mary holding a pregnancy test and looking upset by the result.)

On first glance this would seem disrespectful to many Christians and I am sure that it will spark some controversy. But after thinking about it for awhile I came to the conclusion that although it will presumably upset many Christians, it really isn't disrespectful at all. An unwanted pregnancy is a scary moment for many young women, and the poster just makes an original and potentially helpful connection between a modern issue and a biblical situation.

Vicar Glynn Cardy said that this year St. Matthews wanted to focus on what it was like for a real mother with a real child. "It's about a real pregnancy, a real mother and a real child. It's about real anxiety, courage and hope."

Elaborating on this idea further, maybe a lot of controversies where Christian imagery and ideas are taken and used to convey ideas not normally associated with Christianity are not actually disrespectful but a way of making Christianity relevant to a modern, largely secular audience.

For example, take the controversy this summer when Mexican artist Alma Lopez displayed an image of Mary in a Bikini in a UCC building and drew protests at the college gates.

I supported her at the time, but strictly from the point of view of freedom-of-speech, artistic merit and secular ideals. As I've said I'm not a Christian.

But speaking from an entirely Christian perspective, do you think that maybe the use of Christian imagery, ideas, texts etc in a way that might appear disrespectful or even blasphemous at first might be something to be encouraged rather than fought?

What are your opinions?

Cato Maior

Looking at the other billboard that they put up, it seems bizarre that a church would do this.

Looks like an effort to shake people out of their complacency.

georgieporgy

Look what happens when you try it out on the Jews;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8313249.stm

no room for free speech there!

Soul Winner

When they get the balls to draw an illustration of the prophet then I'll be impressed.

kelly1

onlyrocknroll wrote: »

But speaking from an entirely Christian perspective, do you think that maybe the use of Christian imagery, ideas, texts etc in a way that might appear disrespectful or even blasphemous at first might be something to be encouraged rather than fought?

Personally I don't it's wise to corrupt the Gospel in any way. On the night Christ was conceived in Mary's womb, she was visited by an angel to announce that the Messiah would be born of her so the pregnancy was no surprise! God doesn't play tricks.

MisterEpicurus

Cato Maior wrote: »

Looking at the other billboard that they put up, it seems bizarre that a church would do this.

Looks like an effort to shake people out of their complacency.

It's frustrating when these Christian images are shown by news agencies, but when Mohammad is pictured with a bomb, it gets pixelated out due to fear.

lmaopml

I think Christians are an easy target for this type of eh 'Art' - we just turn the other cheek, a few people might stand a protest..lol...(They would be better off ignoring it imo)

Generally speaking, I think it says more about the lack of imagination of the eh 'Artist', who needs some attention getter because they're not very good really - and benefits from people who think it's worth talking about in the media, than it does about Christianity. It's more cheap and tacky really than shocking..lol...

strobe

lmaopml wrote: »

I think Christians are an easy target for this type of eh 'Art' - we just turn the other cheek, a few people might stand a protest..lol...(They would be better off ignoring it imo)

Generally speaking, I think it says more about the lack of imagination of the eh 'Artist', who needs some attention getter because they're not very good really - and benefits from people who think it's worth talking about in the media, than it does about Christianity. It's more cheap and tacky really than shocking..lol...

It's a Christian church that is behind it. So you can't really
roll out the 'easy target' thing this time.

PDN

strobe wrote: »

It's a Christian church that is behind it. So you can't really
roll out the 'easy target' thing this time.

We're such an easy target that we attack ourselves! :eek:

lmaopml

LOL, should have read the article - apparently this is Christianity being progressive and edgy, some of us are nice like that....

PS It's still shyte tho :P

Onesimus

strobe wrote: »

It's a Christian church that is behind it. So you can't really
roll out the 'easy target' thing this time.

No it isnt. It's a looney who thinks he is a Christian.

wendell borton

georgieporgy wrote: »

Look what happens when you try it out on the Jews;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8313249.stm


no room for free speech there!

look what happens when you try it out on the muslims

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4684652.stm

Doc Farrell

kelly1 wrote: »

Personally I don't it's wise to corrupt the Gospel in any way. On the night Christ was conceived in Mary's womb, she was visited by an angel to announce that the Messiah would be born of her so the pregnancy was no surprise! God doesn't play tricks.

Agreed, someone at this church has a personal need to be noticed that is blinding them to the obvious.

strobe

Onesimus wrote: »

No it isnt. It's a looney[...]

You say potato...

Onesimus

strobe wrote: »

You say potato...

Huh???? Forgive me I really am that stupid.

Peregrinus

I’m going to run counter to the general tone of this discussion, and say that images of this kind are not necessarily offensive. Whether you (or anyone) finds them offensive or not is a choice.

Speaking from a Christian perspective, one of the startling messages of the incarnation is that God makes himself vulnerable, weak and lowly. We see God in a man who was born in a stable, lived a low-status live, and was murdered in the most squalid, humiliating and painful way by a bullying state and a venal religious establishment.

Too much religious art and imagery tends to downplay or deny this embrace of weakness. The Virgin is invariably portrayed as young and beautiful, with skin that would stand up well in an ad for Clearasil. Jesus is tall, blond, blue-eyed and rudely healthy. My point here is not just that the Virgin’s age and Jesus’s ethnicity are wrongly depicted, but that the depictions we choose are desirable, aspirational images - straight out of some advertisers stock photographs. And this is a way of concealing from ourselves the reality of the incarnation.

Would Mary have been scared sh*tless to find herself pregnant by the Holy Spirit? Yes, of course she would. She would have felt a lot of other things, of course, but blank, uncomprehending fear about what this would mean, and how it would affect her life, and how all her previous expectations, hopes and dreams would come to nothing, must have played a part. But we see very little religious imagery that hints at this. It’s something we have concealed for ourselves for so long, and so effectively, that it requires something really startling to call our attention to it.

Consider the crucifix. We’ve seen jewelled crucifixes, ornamented crucifixes, crucifixes of great craftsmanship or rarity. We think of a crucifix - certainly, a “good” crucifix - as an object of beauty. And yet it’s an image of a man tortured to death by being nailed to a piece of wood. It should disgust us the way a picture of any torture victim would disgust us. And if it takes an artist to immerse a crucifix in a jar of urine in order to bring home to us the degradation, squalor and obscenity of a crucifixion, then to my mind that’s a profoundly religious image.

strobe

Onesimus wrote: »

Huh???? Forgive me I really am that stupid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2oEmPP5dTM

You say potato, I say potato.
You say tomato, I say tomato.
You say Looney, I say Christian.

I was just teasing. Sorry.





(The line is actually, 'You like potato' but I had to paraphrase it... They say if you have to explain it[...] Probably best if we just call the whole thing off.)

Killer Pigeon

If a religion does not respect who I am then why should I be obliged to have respect for it?

Peregrinus

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

If a religion does not respect who I am then why should I be obliged to have respect for it?

Possibly because if you do not respect, then who are you to demand that others should respect you?

You're in danger of talking yourself into a vicious cycle here. If nobody is obliged to respect others until they have earned respect by themselves respecting others, then nobody need ever respect anybody.

It seems to me that there are some things that have to be respected, and don't have to earn the right to respect, and one of these is human dignity and autonomy, including -for you, for me, for everybody - the right of conscience; the right to form, and act on, our own ethica values. I may be a complete sh*t who has done nothing to earn or deserve this right, but I still have it. Because, if I don't, neither do you.

Improbable

Peregrinus wrote: »

It seems to me that there are some things that have to be respected, and don't have to earn the right to respect, and one of these is human dignity and autonomy, including -for you, for me, for everybody - the right of conscience; the right to form, and act on, our own ethica values. I may be a complete sh*t who has done nothing to earn or deserve this right, but I still have it. Because, if I don't, neither do you.

This is not a right. You're free to believe whatever you want but you're not free to do whatever you want based on your own particular ethical values.

Doctor DooM

Onesimus wrote: »

No it isnt. It's a looney who thinks he is a Christian.

Who are you to judge who is a true Christian or not? Isn't that God's job?

The ol' No True Scotsman, see?

wendell borton wrote: »

look what happens when you try it out on the muslims

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4684652.stm

And your point is? Do you think Christians should react like that?

You know some Muslims responded to draw Mohammed day by re altering the humourous pictures of him to no longer resemble him, which was even funnier and showed them in a positive light?

"The Muslims" are not just one, faceless group, just like the Christians aren't, to be fair.

MrStuffins

Doctor DooM wrote: »

You know some Muslims responded to draw Mohammed day by re altering the humourous pictures of him to no longer resemble him, which was even funnier and showed them in a positive light?

"The Muslims" are not just one, faceless group, just like the Christians aren't, to be fair.

No TRUE Muslim would do this though

:pac:

Killer Pigeon

Peregrinus wrote: »

Possibly because if you do not respect, then who are you to demand that others should respect you?

Isn't this exactly what I said...

Peregrinus wrote: »

You're in danger of talking yourself into a vicious cycle here. If nobody is obliged to respect others until they have earned respect by themselves respecting others, then nobody need ever respect anybody.

I think respect needs to be earned ... sorry. And if a religion doesn't respect who I am, by what it preaches in its doctrine, I don't feel obliged to respect it. Until I get to know someone I neither have respect or disrespect for them. I would feel completely indifferent towards them, both respect and disrespect are things that are earned.

Peregrinus wrote: »

It seems to me that there are some things that have to be respected, and don't have to earn the right to respect, and one of these is human dignity and autonomy, including -for you, for me, for everybody - the right of conscience; the right to form, and act on, our own ethica values. I may be a complete sh*t who has done nothing to earn or deserve this right, but I still have it. Because, if I don't, neither do you.

I agree. However, religion is just an opinion. If a religion says I'm going to burn in hell for eternity for who I am then of course I'm not going to respect that religion. If the individual who has those opinion tries to force them on others then I'm not going to respect that individual. In my opinion, not all opinions deserve respect.

Onesimus

Who are you to judge who is a true Christian or not? Isn't that God's job?

The ol' No True Scotsman, see?

Aye and Hitler was a sane, authentic Christian and the whole world was wrong in their judgment that he was indeed a looney.

Doctor DooM

Who's that chap, is his name Godwin?

Manach

Doctor DooM wrote: »

Who's that chap, is his name Godwin?

But does not God win always?

Morbert

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMcVESkQeAI

marty1985

Peregrinus wrote: »

I’m going to run counter to the general tone of this discussion, and say that images of this kind are not necessarily offensive. Whether you (or anyone) finds them offensive or not is a choice.

Speaking from a Christian perspective, one of the startling messages of the incarnation is that God makes himself vulnerable, weak and lowly. We see God in a man who was born in a stable, lived a low-status live, and was murdered in the most squalid, humiliating and painful way by a bullying state and a venal religious establishment.

Too much religious art and imagery tends to downplay or deny this embrace of weakness. The Virgin is invariably portrayed as young and beautiful, with skin that would stand up well in an ad for Clearasil. Jesus is tall, blond, blue-eyed and rudely healthy. My point here is not just that the Virgin’s age and Jesus’s ethnicity are wrongly depicted, but that the depictions we choose are desirable, aspirational images - straight out of some advertisers stock photographs. And this is a way of concealing from ourselves the reality of the incarnation.

Would Mary have been scared sh*tless to find herself pregnant by the Holy Spirit? Yes, of course she would. She would have felt a lot of other things, of course, but blank, uncomprehending fear about what this would mean, and how it would affect her life, and how all her previous expectations, hopes and dreams would come to nothing, must have played a part. But we see very little religious imagery that hints at this. It’s something we have concealed for ourselves for so long, and so effectively, that it requires something really startling to call our attention to it.

Consider the crucifix. We’ve seen jewelled crucifixes, ornamented crucifixes, crucifixes of great craftsmanship or rarity. We think of a crucifix - certainly, a “good” crucifix - as an object of beauty. And yet it’s an image of a man tortured to death by being nailed to a piece of wood. It should disgust us the way a picture of any torture victim would disgust us. And if it takes an artist to immerse a crucifix in a jar of urine in order to bring home to us the degradation, squalor and obscenity of a crucifixion, then to my mind that’s a profoundly religious image.

Well put Peregrinus.

I think crucifix loses part of its supposed meaning when it loses its ability to shock. It's the primal scene of Christianity but rarely dwelt upon by a lot of people. It's worth remembering that the crucifix is supposed to represent an innocent man (and a deity unrecognised) judicially tried, officially condemned, tortured and executed naked. I think often it takes a non-Western eye to see it for what it is. The good thing about art is that it has an ability to make strange again things we are already familiar with and take for granted. It's supposed to be obscene, violently obscene.

However, when it comes to works of art, Christians are too often seen as fanatics trying to strangle artistic freedom. While the one in the OP is by a Christian group, sometimes artists go too far to be anti-Christian. I don't like censorship but the idea that it is obsolete is misleading - limits exist when other groups are involved, and I think the example of the crucifix in a jar of urine went over the limit and exercised some sort of unrestricted right to offend. I think Christians and the Catholic Church particularly are too often an easy target for artists - and I was employed by an artist before who often pondered ways to cause offence - because when their sensibilities are offended it's just seen as another example of that 'strange totalitarian mindset'.

lmaopml

marty1985 wrote: »

Well put Peregrinus.

I think crucifix loses part of its supposed meaning when it loses its ability to shock. It's the primal scene of Christianity but rarely dwelt upon by a lot of people. It's worth remembering that the crucifix is supposed to represent an innocent man (and a deity unrecognised) judicially tried, officially condemned, tortured and executed naked. I think often it takes a non-Western eye to see it for what it is. The good thing about art is that it has an ability to make strange again things we are already familiar with and take for granted. It's supposed to be obscene, violently obscene.

However, when it comes to works of art, Christians are too often seen as fanatics trying to strangle artistic freedom. While the one in the OP is by a Christian group, sometimes artists go too far to be anti-Christian. I don't like censorship but the idea that it is obsolete is misleading - limits exist when other groups are involved, and I think the example of the crucifix in a jar of urine went over the limit and exercised some sort of unrestricted right to offend. I think Christians and the Catholic Church particularly are too often an easy target for artists - and I was employed by an artist before who often pondered ways to cause offence - because when their sensibilities are offended it's just seen as another example of that 'strange totalitarian mindset'.

While I do understand everything you say there Marty. I think people themselves are alone responsible for how they view any particular piece of art ( I think 'art' can be a rather loose term at times, but that's just my own opinion ) I don't think that a depiction on a piece of paper or posted online has any major bearing on truth though, so yes, I think it's all about how it is received really. I read the op wrong, but it still doesn't stop me having an opinion on the fact that I think it says very little really that couldn't be said in many and varied ways by the Christian Church who posted the billboard.

I always believed that art is a form of communication between the artist and those who gaze or read or hear etc. - so in fact, I think it says very little about those who gaze on and tells more of the tale about the artist, and who applauds.